People Blessing People

I am constantly amazed by the generosity of people.

After our kitchen sink drains went berserk, dishes everywhere and our handyman who usually does this kind of work for us couldn't come until the next day, I threw in the towel and decided this was a good night to just go out to eat. I had 3 free kids meal coupons for Bob Evans Restaurant, which is our all time most favorite restaurant. When we do go out to eat I always try to keep the bill around $30 - $35, that's including the 15-20% tip. I figured with the 3 FREE kids meals I could certainly do this. So I gather everyone up and we head for the restaurant. We had a very nice, relaxing dinner, great service and great tasting food - as always. At the end when the waitress brought us our bill it was only something like $21 dollars. Now, I hadn't given her any of the free kids meal coupons yet so I was it was strange that it was so low. After looking at the bill, I noticed several of the kids meals weren't even rang up! I pointed this out to my husband and I was afraid that if she mis calculated the bill she would get in trouble if it came up wrong at the end of the night. So, my husband called her back over to the table and pointed this out to her, in which she responded, 'Actually, the gentleman who just left asked to pay for 3 of your kids meals!' What?! My head shot around amazed and trying to catch this person who had blessed us. I guess this good samaritan told the waitress not to say anything to us until he was gone, which was a real disappointment - I really wanted to thank him for his thoughtfulness.

This is not the only time something like this has happened to us, actually it's the second time it's happened to us at Bob Evans. This past summer when we were out to eat at Bob Evans, someone payed for our ENTIRE meal! That guy tried to sneak out on us as well but we managed to catch him and thank him. He told us that our family reminded him so much of his family growing up. There was another time, a few years ago we were at Perkins, and just as we were almost done, an older woman came up to us and complimented my husband and I on what a beautiful family we had and such well behaved kids (yeah right - little did she know). Then she handed my husband a $20 bill to take the kids out for some ice cream.

It used to bother me when things like this would happen, it would make me feel like a charity case - (not that we were trying to be and we never asked for anything from anyone). But this last time, it got me to thinking, it's not charity, it's not a hand out. Simply put, it's people blessing people. In the end, isn't that what's it's all about? Helping your neighbors, friends, church and strangers - just to reach out a caring hand and let someone else know that they are blessed too. And when I pay the blessing forward by donating some of my stockpile to a family in need or help a neighbor out who has lost their job, they too might feel blessed and pay it forward.